


Game Night In Mistral: TABARZIN 20,000: Astral Derelict: In the Barrows of the Iron Ghosts

by Kiiratam



Series: Game Nights at Beacon Academy & Beyond [18]
Category: RWBY, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Action, By Way of Left 4 Dead, Canon Compliant, F/F, Light Angst, Space Hulk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:54:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23607112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: +ASTRAL KNIGHTS DEPLOYING+Fire-Team Alpha[1] Gunnery SergeantStrawberrySluggerof the Marine Order[2] Empty[3] Empty[4] EmptyFire-Team Beta[5] Empty[6] Empty[7] Empty[8] Empty+WARNING: IT IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED THAT YOU HAVE A FULL FIRE-TEAM. DO YOU WISH TO PROCEED ALONE? +[YES, I'M A BADASS][NO, I'LL GET FRIENDS]+++MISSION LOADING+++(Takes place between Volumes 5 and 6. (My BMBLB fic index))
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Series: Game Nights at Beacon Academy & Beyond [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1482323
Comments: 11
Kudos: 36





	Game Night In Mistral: TABARZIN 20,000: Astral Derelict: In the Barrows of the Iron Ghosts

"Gotta say, we were expecting more of you." The scientist realized what he said, and started back-pedaling. Literally, taking a step away, and figuratively. "I mean, not that we're going to turn you away!" 

  
"Quiet, Doctor." The MegaArmy lieutenant looked up at Yang. "We're grateful for the help, Sire." She gestured, and Yang followed her off the landing pad, into the antiseptic white of the research facility. Yang's trained eyes marked every doorway, cross-corridor, and vent cover.

  
The doctor kept up, hurrying next to them. "Doctor Darklighter, xenoarchaeologist." He offered his hand.

  
Yang didn't take it. She checked her shotgun's ammo count. Fully loaded, twelve shells and a slug.

  
"Um. So, this site is like nothing we've ever seen. It's not Mantellian, Dauphin - Ael-, Fel- _or_ Del- - predates Sirusians, obviously. We've got xenolinguists working on the texts we've already uncovered, but-"

  
The lieutenant interrupted him. "Doctor, the Astral Knights aren't interested in your research." She added, in an undertone that Yang's armor nevertheless picked up, "Save it for the grant committee."

  
"Oh, uh, yes, certainly, Lieutenant Antilles. Skipping right ahead-" He took a deep breath. "The site opened. There were sealed doors that we weren't even going to get to for at least ten years, and then they just opened. No mechanism that we could find, nothing on the pscope-"

  
"The company PsiOp didn't detect anything either, Sire."

  
Yang nodded. Pscopes could be mis-calibrated. Psionic Operatives were more reliable.

  
"Yeah, the spook didn't spook." Darklighter continued. "And Lieutenant Antilles here declared martial law, and put the site under quarantine, and demanded that all research stop."

  
"Regulations state-"

  
"I know, I _know_. You've quoted half your book at me, until I gave up. The research teams are going stir crazy, though." He muttered, "Break-through of a lifetime, and she's all about regs." 

  
If looks were lasers, the doctor would have been a smoking pile of ash.

  
Lieutenant Antilles came to a halt in a large pre-fab bay, dominated by a freight elevator. The squad of MegaArmy troopers guarding it snapped to attention. Yang did notice a few of their eyes straying over to her, though. It wasn't everyday that the groundpounders saw an Astral Knight. 

  
"Sergeant Griggs, report."

  
"We had to turn another scientist away, sir. Doctor Cole said she left her work journal down the hole."

  
Antilles turned on Darklighter. "Do your people understand the term _quarantine_?"

  
The doctor sighed. "It's _Cole_. She forgets her own arm sometimes."

  
One of the troopers chimed in. "It's true, sir. She's left it in the messhall."

  
"Did I _ask_ you, Private?"

  
"Sir, no, sir!"

  
Sergeant Griggs gave his chatty trooper a look that promised weeks of latrine duty.

  
Antilles tapped her codex. "B Squad, report to the hole immediately. Sergeant, is your squad ready for action?"

  
He saluted. "Fully charged, sir."

  
"You'll accompany the Knights down. Recon sweep, but follow their lead. Clear?"

  
"Crystal, sir."

  
Turning back and up to Yang, the lieutenant said, "We'll reinforce up here, Sire. Just in case."

  
Yang nodded. It was a wise precaution. She could feel the tension in the air. And it wasn't just from frustrated scientists, regardless of what Darklighter thought. Something was waiting. Below. In the darkness.

  
She entered the elevator, and Grigg's squad joined her. Griggs hit the button, and the elevator began to descend.

* * *

  
**+LOADING+**

  
**++LOADING++**

  
**+BlackCat13 has joined the fray!+**

  
**+++LOADING+++**

  
**+LOADED+**

* * *

  
The elevator slowed, and stopped, the doors sliding slowly open.

  
Yang's headphones crackled, and Blake's voice came in. "Check."

  
Yang responded automatically. "Heard. Check."

  
"Heard."

  
The MegaArmy squad spilled out of the elevator, oblivious to the Astral Knight comm frequencies. After confirming the cavern was secure, Sergeant Griggs offered Blake his codex. "Squad status and command frequencies, Techknight."

  
She reached out and tapped it, and a moment later, the MegaArmy squad status appeared on the bottom of Yang's HUD. Ten troopers, green vitals. 

  
And their comms chatter started sounding in her ears before Grigg's voice cut through it. "No lollygagging, you lot. Stay low, stay mobile. Stay out of the Knights' line of fire."

  
One of the privates, the chatty one from earlier, said, "Weapons hot?" Yang's HUD identified her as Pvt Nyxie.

  
Griggs looked up at them. "Sires?"

  
Blake came in on the Knight frequency. "They're already scared. May as well tell them to shoot first, and ask questions never."

  
Yang answered in the wide channel. "Weapons hot. Grenades authorized."

  
"You heard the Gunny. If it moves, shoot it. If it's still moving, blow it up. If it's still moving, keep trying."

  
She could hear Blake's smile. "No kill like overkill."

  
"Sires, would you like to take point, or should we assume standard recon procedures?"

  
Instead of answering, Yang just started stomping forward, swinging her boarding shotgun to the ready position. Towards the giant slabs of doors on the far side of the cavern. They were at least ten meters tall, and the surface was deeply pitted with rust. They were open - just slightly - but the scale of it meant that was still wide enough for Yang to walk through without turning her shoulders.

  
After so long moving through the tight corridors of drifting derelict vessels, the openness was unnerving. The cavern beyond was as large as the one behind them, but it was anything but natural. Everything was made of gleaming iron, slick with a sheen of oil. It shone in the underslung luminators of the troopers, scattering the light oddly, revealing the odd angles of the walls, the strange, glyphic script carved into every surface.

  
"Sarge?" Yang's HUD identified the speaker as Pvt Hob. "Why ain't it rusted in here?"

  
"No air." Blake must be feeling chatty. But only to Yang.

  
Griggs came back. "What am I, one of the docs? Ask them when we get back."

  
The squad spread out, reporting anything they found. But Yang could already see the important part, thanks to the sensory augments in her head and armor. There were three corridors leading out of this cavern that were big enough to accommodate Astral Knights. Two that the troopers could navigate on hands and knees.

  
"These sigils mean anything to you?" Blake was crouched down in a patch of them. 

  
Yang shook her head, and asked. "Corridor opinion?"

  
"Leftmost. Got rearguard."

  
Double-checking her ammo count - still full - Yang headed towards the leftmost corridor. She kept her barrel low, ready to pull it up and fire. Those smaller passages had been on ground level. There might be some kind of crawler. She lifted her gaze to the low ceiling. No reason it would have to stay on the ground. Triggering her comm, she said to everyone, "Remember to check your verticals."

  
In their channel, Blake asked, "Eyes?"

  
"No eyes. Yet."

  
The squad had formed up behind her, with Blake and her tri-carbine bringing up the rear. Yang led them deeper.

* * *

  
Yang waited, eyes and shotgun forward, as her team crossed the intersection. Griggs was crouched by her knee, rifle pointed the same way she was. Blake was still on the far side of the intersection, watching behind them. It was the third intersection they'd encountered, and nothing had happened. Yet. In each case, though, the crossing corridor was smaller than the one they were on, so Yang had led them straight through. She was beginning to doubt herself. How deep did this go? Should she turn off the main corridor?

  
There was a burst of laserfire, and Yang kept herself facing forward with an effort. The squad should be able to handle it. And if they couldn't, they'd let her know.

  
Griggs snapped around, focusing on the intersection. "Nyxie, report!"

  
"Thought I saw something."

  
"Anyone else?"

  
There was a ragged chorus of negatives, with both Blake and Yang adding theirs to the mix.

  
They waited a few long breaths.

  
Nyxie came in again, "Sorry, sarge."

  
Griggs didn't respond.

  
After a few moments, Blake said, "Through."

  
Yang started forward again.

* * *

  
One of the soldiers swore loudly into their mic. Yang had to agree, even if Griggs pounced on them for their lack of comms discipline.

  
They'd finally come out into a chamber - and it made the entry hall look like a closet. Ruddy lights illuminated structures that were outside the range of their luminators, making them look like monuments of rust. It stretched off for klicks. The corridor had terminated in a broad landing, and a set of wide stairs descended into a courtyard.

  
The courtyard looked like it had been the site of a massacre. Bones - were they bones? they weren't bone-colored - were piled up in heaps all around, but amidst them, there lay ancient skeletons. Not human, or faunus, or any alien skeleton that Yang recognized - and she'd made more than her fair share of alien corpses. But they were humanoid. Three meters tall, she guessed. And the joints looked like they were in about the same place, even if all the limbs were longer. No jaw, but a nasal cavity. Yang figured that they'd either had some kind of psychic communication, or the communication bits had all been soft tissue, and were long gone. All of the corpses, though, were the same dull gray of the walls. Iron gray.

  
"Two o'clock low."

  
Yang snapped to look at the position Blake had called, bringing her shotgun up. She didn't see any movement, so why had-

  
There. Not movement, just a glimmer. And a contrast, of shockingly pale bones. Yang recognized those bones. Delicate-looking, surprisingly hard to snap, with psi-active marrow. Dauphin bones. Whatever sect they belonged to - Aeldauphin, Deldauphin, Feldauphin - they all had the same skeleton.

  
And the glimmer was one of their Aura-Eating Psteel Blades - pitch black, except for the starry lights that dwelt within. Old soldiers' tales held that every Aura devoured left another light in the blade. Another stolen soul, trapped by the Grimm infused into the weapon. 

  
But a Grimm was still an intelligence. And if they could get it back to Command, the Psi-Interrogators could pry secrets out of it. Either ripping knowledge out of the rudimentary intelligence within, or psi-necroing the Auras within it, or - Yang wasn't a psi-expert, but it was intel, however the brass got it. The objective AI in her HUD came to the same conclusion, because it slapped a 'Vital Intelligence' marker down on it.

  
"What _is_ it, Sarge? Universe's creepiest art installation?"

  
"Hob, _I don't know_. Cut. The. Chatter."

  
Yang opened her channel. "Cover me." She started down the steps, focusing on her objective, but trying not to fixate on it. Some of those bone piles were tall enough to hide behind. _What_ could be hiding behind them wasn't really important.

  
She heard the squad fan out behind her - the slight sounds of metal and plastic and flesh as everyone adjusted their grips, wiped away sweat, checked their power packs, and tried to stay calm as they did breathing exercises or murmured prayers.

  
Blake asked in their channel. "Want company?"

  
"No. Trap."

  
It _was_ a trap, Yang knew. It had to be. All of those corridors, with their weird echoes, and the constant need for vigilance thanks to the intersections - and now there was vital intel out in the open? There had even been a jump scare, with Nyxie firing at nothing. Act one of the horror movie was over. Now the dying started.

  
Or - Yang checked her shotgun - the killing. And Yang wasn't going to be a victim.

  
She moved carefully, leaving distance between herself and the bone piles - as much as she could. And she was avoiding stepping on the intact skeletons. The xenologists would thank her for that. Yang was nearly at the Dauphin skeleton when-

  
"Pile behind you."

  
Spinning around into a crouch, Yang brought her shotgun up, ready to lock in and fire as soon as she had a target.

  
One of the skulls clattered to the ground, and rolled away. Nothing else moved.

  
Yang rose. "Clear." And now even Blake was being a scaredy-

  
_No._

  
Blowing out a breath, Yang kept moving towards her objective. Five long strides, and she was there. Taking a long moment, she panned over the Dauphin's skeleton. Medical might be able to get something out of the recording. Though, given the less than whole condition of the skeleton, Yang ventured a guess that they'd been beaten to death. However many hundreds or thousands of years that had been.

  
Tucking the butt of her shotgun into her side, Yang crouched down to pick up the Aura-Eating glaive.

  
A Grimm growling filled her as her hand touched the hilt, and Yang nearly flinched away, her instincts telling her that there was a Beowulf _right there_. Her pscope had spiked too - no wonder, Dauphin psicrafting being what it was. But she persisted, picking the glaive up and sticking it to the omni-carry magpoint on the back of her armor.

  
After a moment, the growling faded into the background, as her senses adjusted. Just another battlefield, just another terror. She could handle it.

  
Her channels filled with adrenaline-soaked shouts of "Contact!"

  
Blake added, as Yang readied her shotgun, "Between us."

  
One of the skeletons was getting to its feet, sounding like a dozen knives being whetted at once.

  
Scared they may have been, but the MegaArmy squad were trained soldiers. Before it could even come to an upright position, it was being splattered with laserfire. Its iron bones gleamed red with impact points - and staggered as Blake's tri-carbine buzzsawed away. Yang added three shells to the mix, and the skeleton fell back down to the iron courtyard.

  
And started getting up again, a ruddy light gleaming within its ribcage.

  
Yang charged forward - a few laserbolts deflecting off her armor before the troopers registered her motion - and stomped on the thing's ribcage, pressing it down. From the depths of its eye sockets, it glared at her with pinpricks of werelight. She glared back at it with nine more shells. And a solid slug.

  
Now headless, it wasn't going to be getting up anymore. Yang started reloading, hoping that-

  
"Multiple contacts!"

  
"Gods, Sarge, it's all of them!"

  
"The piles are moving!"

  
"Contact contact contact!"

  
"Enemies everywhere!"

  
Breaking into a run for the stairs, Yang saved her breath, hoping - despite how her hopes had gone already - that Blake would -

  
"Grenades!"

  
\- do exactly that.

  
Ten MegaArmy Standard Issue Grenades and two Augmetic Order KCStrikers went hurdling past her. Yang tried to run faster.

  
The collective explosion peppered her armor with shrapnel and threw her against the steps. She scrambled up the first couple, with hand and shotgun and feet, before getting upright.

  
"Movement!" Laserfire went searing past her. The grenades had only bought her time.

  
Yang charged back into the corridor, calling out "Fall back!" as she did. This was a recon mission, they had intel, and the locals were angry. And very _very_ hard to kill.

  
The rest of the squad fell in behind her, with Blake bringing up the rear again. If Yang went down, Blake would have a chance to grab the glaive as she rushed past.

  
Behind them, there was a noise like an anvil ringing. An alarm was going out.

  
Yang wondered at all those cross-corridors, and the other tunnels leading out of the entryway. What might be lurking within.

  
She kept reloading.

* * *

  
"Contact! Wall! Wa-"

  
Yang spun around and fired at the iron ghost that was emerging from the corridor wall, trying to ignore the wet-sounding thud as the trooper fell, his throat still in the ghost's hand. Everyone was snapping their weapons up, firing - 

  
"Yang! Behind!" Blake followed her warning with a burst of fire.

  
Ducking, Yang pivoted around her gun, bringing it to bear on another one of the metal aliens, stepping out of the wall with horrible long-limbed motion, already reaching for her -

  
In the depths of her mind, where time was even more of an illusion, Yang wondered if her armor would protect her at all. Or if her shells would even hit. She concluded, as she held down the trigger and fought the recoil, that if they had that fine of control over their intangibility, they wouldn't need regeneration. And she would be dead.

  
Her shells slammed it back into the wall, in a racket of iron on iron. Staggered, but very much still active, it reached out sharpened fingers towards her. Yang's slug punched a hole through its head, and her gun went dry. 

  
It was still alive. Or dead. Undead. Not nearly dead enough.

  
She knocked its arm aside with the stock of her shotgun, and charged forward, slamming it back into the wall with all the weight of herself and her armor. Get inside its reach, buy time.

  
As it tried to re-adjust, gather its long limbs, Yang dropped her empty shotgun, grabbed its head with one hand, and drew her sidearm with the other. She jammed the barrel into the hole left by her slug and held down the trigger.

  
That weakened the skull enough that it crumbled in the armored grip of her hand. The iron ghost clattered to the floor, and Yang recovered her shotgun, started reloading as she turned back to the other one.

  
Blake was on top of it, both arms and her mecha-tentacle staking it to the floor with knives. The rest of the squad was clustered around it, pouring laserfire into its head. It finally stopped twitching, after its skull was slagged, and Blake got up.

  
"More behind!" Yang could see three coming, their long-limbed gait disconcerting to watch. How many more were behind them?

  
"Go go go!" Blake's mecha-tentacle snatched up her carbine, and she and the troopers burst into a run.

  
Yang popped a slug in - fully loaded again - and grabbed one of her grenades. Anti-armor sounded like a good idea. She lobbed it past Blake, and turned around and started running herself. They had a lot of ground yet to cover. 

  
She hoped their ammo held out.

* * *

  
They were at the second intersection, panting, gasping, bent over wheezing. Or, in Yang's case (and probably Blake's) impatiently waiting for the unaugmented MegaArmy troopers to catch their wind. At least the iron ghosts didn't seem to be particularly fast. But they were still coming. Everyone knew that.

  
Pvt. Hob's circuit lit up, but before he could say anything, Griggs growled out, "Save the questions."

  
His circuit went off.

  
Blake said, "Skittering, no eyes."

  
After a moment, Yang heard it too. If 'skittering' was the right noise for what sounded like a walking knife collection. 

  
The troopers groaned and lifted their rifles.

  
Nyxie muttered, "Just one decent mission. _One_ mission. That's all I want."

  
Griggs came in on the command channel. "Sires, do we fight or run?"

  
In their private channel, Blake commented, "They're at their limits, Yang. Can't really do either." She'd know; she was getting more complete vitals than Yang was.

  
The skittering was getting louder.

  
"Anyone got a deathstick?" Hob asked, breezily.

  
Yang snorted.

  
Nyxie let out a bark of laughter. "Those'll kill you."

  
"And?"

  
Blake cut in over the troopers. "Grenades ready."

  
The first thing crawled out of the darkness. Not an iron ghost - but a skull skittering along on legs made of rib bones. More came after it, motley assemblages of iron bones, nearly crawling over each other in their haste. Closing fast.

  
Half the squad laid down suppressing fire, and the other half lobbed grenades out.

  
In the aftermath of the explosions, there was a moment of silence. And then the skittering began again. Yang wasn't sure if the things were just re-assembling themselves, or if there was just an endless stream of them. She didn't like either option.

  
Griggs asked again, more insistent. "Fight or run?"

  
A small rocket pod popped out of Blake's artificial arm. "Run. I'll buy time." She turned to face the onrushing horde.

  
Yang wouldn't let herself hesitate. She started down the hallway. Away from Blake. The troopers broke into a ragged jog, following her. Too tired to look back. And Yang wouldn't let herself. But her mouth was moving, without her meaning to say anything. "Catch up quick."

  
"I will."

  
Refusing to let herself think any more about it - time for that later - Yang kept her eyes open as she ran, sweeping the walls, making sure nothing was coming through them, tracking vents-

  
Ignoring the explosions behind her.

* * *

  
Yang slowed as they approached the entry chamber, the remaining five troopers nearly running into her. Without Blake on rearguard, they'd been surprised by an iron ghost and a pack of the skitterlings. While Yang dealt with the iron ghost with lead and depleted Dust, the MegaArmy squad had tried to handle the swarm. They'd done it. It had only cost the last of their grenades. And four lives.

  
Her armor sensors were picking up hostiles. Ten of them, standing in a single line across the chamber. Yang didn't have the ammo for this, even if they were willing to queue up for individual fights.

  
They weren't. Whatever alien senses they had, they were as good as Yang's. The ten iron ghosts started crossing the chamber towards them.

  
The MegaArmy troopers slapped fresh power packs into their rifles.

  
"Sire-" Griggs started.

  
Yang cut him off. "Leftmost. I'll punch through, you hit the one next to it. Aim for the eyes."

  
"Yes, sire."

  
She broke into a run. Saving her shots until she got closer, charging right at the center of their line.

  
They started bunching together, hoping to swarm her under, excited by the kill - Yang didn't know, and she didn't care. As long as the plan worked.

  
As Yang entered shotgun range, she banked to the left, firing. Aiming for center-mass. Headshots were killshots, but she didn't need it dead. Just down long enough for everyone to get past. Yang fired her last shell, saving her slug, and threw herself into a slide, her armor screeching on the iron floor.

  
Iron bones, regeneration, three meters tall - none of that mattered when a fully-armored Astral Knight threw herself at top speed into your ankle.

  
The iron ghost toppled, with a broken leg. At least momentarily. Yang heard laserfire, and a cut-off scream from one of the troopers. As she heaved herself to her feet, the iron ghost grabbed her ankle.

  
She blew its hand off with her slug.

  
The hand was still moving, but it didn't have any leverage. She'd deal with it later. 

  
Yang scrambled away, seeing three troopers in front of her, hightailing it for the doors. She started closing the distance, hearing one of them choke out a warning to the units topside. Not Griggs. He must have fallen behind. Yang made herself start reloading. They weren't clear yet.

  
But they were through the doors now. And Blake hadn't caught up.

  
Yang came to a halt, spinning around. This was a natural chokepoint. She could hold here - sure, she didn't have the ammo, but she had the Dauphin glaive, and even if these things didn't have Auras, or souls, psteel would cleave them just the same.

  
They could walk _through_ walls.

  
Somehow, Yang found herself not caring. She unslung the glaive, braced it against the ground, and set her shotgun on it. She muttered to herself, "Universe's deadliest shooting stick."

  
The first iron ghost came through the opening, and Yang unloaded her shotgun into it. Staggered, but not downed, it braced itself against the doors.

  
Yang drove forward and took it through the neck with the glaive. She tore it free, and its head bounced away.

  
She could see the ones right behind it move to the side, to the opposite side of the doors. To start phasing through. No time to reload.

  
"Sorry I'm late." Blake voice crackled into her ears. "I brought friends."

  
Through the gap between the doors, Yang could see her fellow Knight, armor battered and blackened, without her carbine, speed out of the leftmost corridor, skitterlings at her heels.

  
"They're coming through the door!" Having appraised Blake of the situation, Yang slung her shotgun, and took a two-handed grip on the glaive. Behind her, she could hear the elevator ascending. She couldn't blame the troopers for fleeing. They were only human, and they'd probably thought Yang was right behind them. And they'd completed the mission; the troopers could offer at least some intel to Command.

  
She fell back far enough that she could watch the entire door, and loped off a hand that was reaching through. Bounding to the other door, she slashed another across the face. And she knew she was trying to defend too much ground, that she couldn't stop them from coming through.

  
But she could keep them from paying attention to Blake.

  
One emerged wholly, and she jammed the glaive into its ribcage and twisted, sending ribs flying, severing its spine.

  
And another grabbed onto her helmet, and she had a brief vision of stabbing iron fingers, and half her world went dark. Yang lashed out on her blind side, feeling resistance and dragging her glaive free. Falling back towards the elevator, blaring her order's warcry over her armor's external speakers, twisting to the side so her one remaining eye could see all the remaining enemies.

  
She saw the heatwave distortion of a stealth field dropping, and Blake pounced over the threshold, planting three knives into an iron ghost and bearing it to the ground. She sprung up, and dashed to Yang's side. 

  
Blake took up a position on Yang's newly blind side. "Any grenades?"

  
"Nope. Any rockets?"

  
"Nope."

  
"Fall back to the elevator?" The iron ghosts were fanning out. Still eight of them, with Blake's latest victim shoving itself back to its feet.

  
"Gone."

  
"I hear it coming."

  
Yang nodded. "Elevator." They both started easing backwards, and the iron ghosts started their implacable advance.

  
Blake darted forward, and scissored at a leg with her knives. It fell, trying to grab her, but Blake bounded back out of reach again.

  
One of the flankers tried to get behind them. Yang caught the motion in her peripheral vision, and threw a long cut at it - more to get it to retreat than to hurt it.

  
It worked, with the iron ghost falling back. For the moment. They were still coming, and the elevator shaft was only a dozen meters away...

  
And the skitterlings had made it through the door, scraping horribly as they clambered through it, on the floor, the doors, the ceiling-

  
Yang shook her head. "The noise is the worst."

  
Blake laughed. "Disagree. The stabbing."

  
The iron ghosts were pressing them back.

  
The elevator doors dinged, and opened.

  
"Sires! Down!" Lieutenant Antilles yelled.

  
As they threw themselves flat, the dulcet tones of fully automatic laserfire sounded above them, with a deeper thrumming of a blaster cannon accompanying it.

  
After a moment, Yang looked up. The iron ghosts were down. But they were still moving. Yang shoved herself to her feet, as Blake did the same, and they crammed themselves into the elevator with Antilles, B Squad, and the A squad survivors. Yang jabbed the 'up' button as the first of the iron ghosts staggered to its feet.

  
Antilles looked up at them. "Sires, what happened?"

  
**+++ MISSION COMPLETE +++**

* * *

  
Yang blew out a breath and sat back as the mission stats started to roll across the screen.

  
Blake's voice came in over her headset. "That was rough."

  
After nodding, Yang realized that they weren't in the same room, and keyed her mic. "Yeah." Blake was on the other side of Mistral, in the mansion the council had loaned the Menagerie militia.

  
"Where's Ruby and Jaune and everyone? Weren't we all going to play?"

  
"Bed. Download was taking too long." Yang wasn't sure if it had just been all the Astral Derelict players in Mistral trying to download the expansion at once, but it had taken until the dead of night.

  
"Oh." There was a long pause. "Couldn't sleep?"

  
Yang took a deep breath. Held it. Let it out. It was Blake. "Nope."

  
"Me either."

  
Even if she was being really chatty.

  
It had been a year. People could change.

  
Yang knew she had.

  
But all she had for Blake was a tangled mess of love and despair and sacrifice and loss and trust and fear and - She scrubbed at her eyes with her hand. Tried again, with her real hand.

  
Blake came in again. "Want to do the next mission?"

  
Knowing her voice wouldn't sound right, too thick, Yang said, "I should sleep. Morning practice." And there was a whole other world of mess, of trying to learn to fight together again with Ruby and Weiss and JNR and Oscar- 

  
"Oh. Okay. I should start coming to those. Since we're all together again." -and Blake.

  
Yang curled her legs up, holding them close with her left arm. Pushed her chat button, tried to say something, but couldn't find her voice.

  
Blake kept talking. "When are you starting?"

  
After swallowing a few times, Yang managed to say, "Seven."

  
She heard Blake laugh lightly. Yang wasn't sure if she was forcing it. "Normal time."

  
"Normal time." For Beacon.

  
"See you at practice in three and a half hours." And Blake kept holding onto her button, leaving her channel open, like she was going to say something more. But she didn't.

  
Yang closed the game, and pulled her headset off. Sat there for a while, looking at it. 

  
She sighed, and put it down. Closed her scroll, and got up off the couch. If she sat here any longer, Weiss would come down to make her morning coffee, and she'd think Yang had stayed up all night playing videogames, and there would probably be yelling, and Weiss getting prissy and-

  
No. Weiss had changed too. She wasn't the snooty rich girl she'd been at Beacon.

  
But Yang didn't want to try to explain her nightmares to Weiss. Or the visitor from a few nights ago. And she couldn't explain any more of how she felt - she'd already told Weiss everything she could. Yang had to sort through it herself, untangle how she felt.

  
See if having Blake around made anything better.

  
Yang stretched, and went off to bed. She could get two whole hours of sleep.

  
Better than nothing.


End file.
